


Shining Armor

by neveralarch



Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout
Genre: M/M, Sex Pollen, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:50:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: It's very rare that a dope like me gets an opportunity to rescue a stand-up guy like Saul Panzer.Saul gets drugged with something nasty while on a case. Fortunately Archie's ready to save the day.





	Shining Armor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



> Happy yuletide The_Plaid_Slytherin! This is a treat that got a little out of hand - thanks for a great prompt :)
> 
> This fic contains non-consensual aphrodisiacs (i.e. the sex pollen trope) and its associated consent issues; kissing; and canon-typical violence. Please let me know if you need details.

It's very rare that a dope like me gets an opportunity to rescue a stand-up guy like Saul Panzer. I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity, except that Zeck's goons were a higher caliber of goon and Saul decided that it was more important to get the civilians clear than it was to make sure _he_ was clear. Even then, Saul managed to tell one of the neighborhood kids Nero Wolfe's address before he, Saul, got knocked over the head by a goon and carried away.

The kid tried to refuse payment when he came to get me—that's how big of an impression Saul made. I convinced him to take a quarter by telling him that Saul's life was worth ten times that, but it was all the change I had on me.

Saul was such a stand-up guy that he even made the rescuing easy. He was still in the basement of the apartment building, still distracting Zeck's cronies and giving his knight in shining armor a chance to sneak in. I pulled my Marley .38 out of its holster and leaned around the corner to try and get a better sense of what I was facing.

There were three of the thugs. A big one with a notebook, a small one with a gun, and a skinny tall one with a stethoscope around his neck. I didn't like the look of that. Saul seemed okay, just his hands tied behind his back and a little flushed and disheveled from resisting capture. Maybe he was hurt where I couldn't see.

"Who are you working for?" asked the big guy.

Saul smiled and didn't say anything.

"He's working for that fat bastard," said the small guy.

"I know," said the big guy. "I want _him_ to say it. McCullough, give him another dose."

"I've already given him three," said McCullough with the stethoscope. "I told you, we haven't tested this enough. I don't know how it interacts with his biochemistry."

"Give him another dose," said the big guy.

"Do you want a dead prisoner?" asked McCullough.

"I want a _talking_ one." The big guy gestured, and the small guy turned his gun on McCullough instead. McCullough took a step back, and I took a step in. I'd heard enough.

One against three isn't great odds, but one against two with a reluctant scientist getting in the way isn't bad at all. It took about five minutes before the big guy was down with a bullet in his leg and the small guy was down with my fist to his jaw. The small guy had got McCullough in the shoulder before I'd had a chance to do anything, which worked for me because I didn't exactly trust someone who only balked when asked to give _four_ doses of an experimental drug to a perfectly nice guy like Saul.

"How we doing down there?" I asked Saul.

Saul smiled at me and didn't say anything. This close, I could see that his eyes were glassy and he was still sweating, even though the room was cold and he hadn't even tried to exert himself in the short melee.

"Saul?"

Saul squinted at me. "Are you really here?"

"No." I put my hand under his chin to feel his pulse, which was faster than Wolfe's when he sees a new orchid. "I'm a figment of your imagination. They told you to think of a perfect human specimen, and this is what you came up with."

"Oh." Saul leaned into my hand, blinking slowly. "Archie, I don't feel so good."

"Hey doc?" I called. "What exactly did you do to him?

No response. I glanced over my shoulder and was treated to the unfortunate sight of McCullough out cold and the big guy starting to wake up. I didn't think he'd be moving very fast, but I didn't want to hang around to find out. I cut Saul's hands loose with my pocketknife. "Come on, we need to get out of here."

"Archie," said Saul. He rolled his shoulders and wrists a few times, stretching the joints, and then reached out and caught my head between his hands. He pressed one palm against my cheek, gently cupped the back of my head with the other, and pulled me into the gentlest, sweetest kiss I've ever had.

"Stop!" barked Wolfe. "This is tomfoolery. What ridiculous novel did you plagiarize it from?"

"No sir," I said. "No novel. The events are real, the prose is my own. You asked me to tell you what happened while you were at Rusterman's and I'm telling you."

Wolfe sputtered for a couple of seconds, but he managed to wrap his head around the idea a lot more quickly than I had. Of course, Wolfe didn’t have the distraction of Saul Panzer trying to tickle his tonsils. Which was good, because then I would have had to pry Saul off him before Wolfe realized what a good kisser Saul was and decided to fight me for his hand.

"They gave him a hallucinogen?" asked Wolfe, interrupting a perfectly good daydream.

"I think they meant it to be some kind of truth serum," I said. "But it didn't play well with his constitution."

"And he _kissed_ you? Pfui.”

"I'd prove it, but Saul doesn't wear lipstick." I felt my face. "And he shaves too well to scrape up my cheeks. May I continue?"

Wolfe gave me a narrow look, but he nodded. I glanced at my notebook to find my place, but I honestly didn't need to. There wasn't a chance of me forgetting a moment of that kiss, not in a million years.

I'd pulled away from Saul after a couple of minutes and gotten him upright. He wasn't very steady on his feet. When I got his arm over my shoulder, he seemed more interested in leaning on me than he was in moving. He kept pressing his face against my neck, and when I pulled him along with me he made some pained noises. Not surprising. When I looked down I could see that his pants must be getting pretty uncomfortable.

"Stop!" shouted Wolfe again.

"I'm just telling you," I said. "Reporting faithfully and completely, and, I have to say, with some delicacy."

"I don't need such colorful description," said Wolfe. "You could have said that the drug seemed to have an aphrodisiac qualities, and left it at that."

"All right, I could have." I folded my arms. "What's an aphrodisiac quality?"

"An aphrodisiac," said Wolfe through gritted teeth, "is an agent which arouses—"

I thought I was keeping a straight face, but Wolfe went red and smacked the desk. "You know what it is! Get on with it!"

"All right, all right!" I raised my hands in surrender. "I knew I needed to get away, get a phone, and get a bed, in that order—"

"A _bed_?" cried Wolfe, which is when I realized I'd gone too far.

"Just for Saul to lie down! What kind of guy do you think I am?"

Wolfe looked at me narrowly, but in the end he nodded and settled back in his chair. Which was good, because if he'd really thought—well, it would have been a race to see if he could fire me before I quit.

"I called the cops from one of the upstairs apartments, called a cabbie we could trust, and brought Saul here," I said. "There, done. Colorless enough for you?"

"Saul is here?" asked Wolfe. "In the guest room? In his condition?"

I shook my head. "I tried to put him in the guest room, but he didn't like it much. He's in my bed." He'd liked that, all right. He'd gotten personal with one of my pillows, the one I slept on most nights. Wolfe definitely didn't need to know that.

"You've called Dr. Vollmer," said Wolfe.

"Yeah." I shrugged. "He said Saul didn't look so hot, but he wasn't going to die. Just have to wait for the drug to wear off and take _care_ of him when he wakes up—"

Wolfe made a disgusted noise, and I started yelling at him again about making assumptions, and it was probably for the best that Fritz came in right about then.

"I've made some soup," said Fritz. "And some herbal tea. I would bring it up to Saul myself, but I thought perhaps…"

"I'll take it." I jumped up and gave Wolfe a wink. "Wouldn't want Saul to get lonely."

"This is intolerable," growled Wolfe, but I never found out if he meant me or just the situation or even Zeck himself, because I was already in the kitchen grabbing the tray.

The lights were out in my room, but I could see Saul's eyes gleaming in the light that filtered through my blinds. "All right?" I whispered.

"I've got the worst hangover of my life," croaked Saul. "And my stomach's trying to eat itself."

"Fritz made soup." I set it down on the night stand and let Saul look at it. He started out nauseated, but then the smell got to working on him and in five minutes he'd eaten half the bowl.

"I suppose you don't remember anything," I said. "But don't worry, your hero Archie was there to rescue—"

"I remember all of it." Saul laughed, but he didn't sound like he thought it was funny. "Look, Archie. You're a good friend. Probably the best friend I could hope for, under the circumstances. If you want me to get out, I'll—"

"You'd fall down the stairs," I said.

"There's an elevator," pointed out Saul.

"Oh, no you don't," I said. "I get one opportunity in my entire life to rescue you, and you're already trying to ruin it by sacrificing yourself. I was going to hold this over your head for months."

Saul laughed again, and this time he sounded a little more genuine. "You still could."

"No." I shook my finger at him. "Not if you're going to be serious about it. Saul, it was a strain on my chivalrous nature to have you pressed up against me like that, knowing it would be a rotten thing to take advantage of. I kept myself going by promising that we'd have a good talk about it when you sobered up, and now you're trying to say I'm a good friend and that you'll do me the favor of running out on me! Eat the rest of your soup before it gets cold."

Saul followed orders. "You can't blame me for being cautious."

Well, no. If I'd gotten dosed up with aphrodisiacs and let lose on the world, I imagined I'd be pretty embarrassed too. Especially when being attracted to a handsome chunk of grade-A detective is supposed to be perfectly natural for half of humanity but not to be even dreamed of for the other half, much to my despair.

"Tell me something," I said. "Was it just the drugs?"

Saul looked down at his empty bowl while I held my breath. "No," he said finally. "It wasn't just the drugs."

I grinned at him. "Then you can apologize to my pillow, but you can't apologize to me. May I kiss you?"

Saul consented, and I planted one on him. And another. And another. When I surfaced I found I'd crawled up into the bed, and was pinning Saul down with my ass on his hips. Saul was sweaty and flushed, but his eyes weren't glassy at all—they were clear and sharp, just like I like them.

"How much did you tell Wolfe?" he asked.

I cleared my throat. "You know there can be no secrets between a man and his employer."

Saul let his head drop against the headboard.

"I didn't tell him _everything_ ," I said. "Only—"

"Only enough to wind him up until he snapped," said Saul. I really admire his perspicacity, even when it's turned against me. "All right, all right. I suppose I should have expected that."

"Let me make it up to you?" My hand hovered over his fly. Saul was still in his trousers and undershirt. It hadn't seemed safe to try and undress him for bed.

"You're still working on him," said Saul. "You're going to get _me_ worked up, and it's going to end with Wolfe thumping on the floor with a broomstick and threatening to make you move out."

"Maybe." I let my hand drop. "What do you say?"

"Fuck it," said Saul, “come here.” That was the last coherent thing either of us managed until Wolfe finally lost his temper and set off the fire alarm.


End file.
